Classic Wing-Play - IT'S BACK FOR FM11

Hi everyone,

Back is the classic wing-play tactic.....

Disclaimer

I produced these tactics from scratch back in 2009 and have since developed them as each new series of the game is released. If you want to make alterations / changes to these tactics please feel free (but please do not make any claims that they are yours – credit must be given to the original creator and that is me), and if you want to copy anything into your own tactics please feel free but give some credit to the original creator. Please respect my efforts I put into these tactics - don’t copy them without at least giving me some credit. Thank you!

Introduction:

Not every tactic will suit every team. Therefore it is a matter of taste, trial and error, and is the reason why you should treat this tactic with the same vein.

I have created what I believe is a realistic classic wing-play style. It’s a similar style to how Celtic play in modern times. An attack minded style that will create lots of chances.

You will find 2 sets of tactics, which are fairly similar to one another and, can be changed during matches or against tougher / weaker opposition making the difference between success and defeat. For example, you can change from Wing Play (4-2-4) 2.0 to Wing Play (4-2-4) 1.0 giving you more stability in defence and midfield as well as creating a better balance throughout the team, therefore reducing the opposition’s chances.

I hope this brings you as much success as the rest of us have had with these tactics.

You will first find information on each of the 2 tactics below, followed by some hints and tips, which you should read to enable full success.

Oh! I also created a narrow version for teams that prefer to play this way.

Good luck!

Jay-Producer

Classic Wing (4-2-4) 1.0:

Still an attacking style of play for both home and away games, but uses more caution and a basic flat midfield shape. Works very well against really tough teams home and away. Use this against world-class opposition. Ideal for tough European games producing surprising good result.

Use this -

- Home & Away against teams that are far better than you. (i.e Celtic V Barcelona)

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Classic Wing (4-2-4) 2.0:

More attack minded than Classic Wing (4-2-4) 1.0. Your full-backs will make frequent forward runs to support the wingers with a higher degree of attacking mentality (but not too attack minded). The CM is the playmaker who produces all those ball-splitting moves and gets forward at every opportunity. Your wingers will be more attack-minded with a higher degree of creativity and attacking mentality. This tactic uses the offside trap to try and avoid your defence from being exploited with through balls. Sometimes this tactic can be dangerous to use away from home if you are playing against a team that is slightly better than you or of equal quality. There is also evidence to suggest teams who use wingers will also cause you serious problems.

Use this when playing against -

- Teams that are slightly better than you (i.e Celtic V Celta.V) At Home only

- Teams that are of equal to you (i.e. Celtic V Rangers)

- Teams that are slightly worse than you (Celtic V Hibs / Hearts)

- Teams that are worse than you (Celtic V ICT/Hamilton)

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Overview of tactic:

- One striker is more attack minded than the other. This means the other striker will link up more with your midfield, and occasionally hassle the oppositions midfielders for the ball. You will find more space is created this way stretching the opposition defence – particularly when hitting them on the break.

- Your wingers will try to get into the channels and bombard forward at every opportunity making it 4 in attack.

- Your wing-backs will support the wingers and over-lap on some occasions but will usually just lye behind the wingers.

- Your CM will get forward at every opportunity. He is the one that pulls the strings in the team. He is the playmaker and distributes the ball to all your attacking teammates. He will also do his fair share of defending and trying to win the ball back.

- Your DM will sit-back and support your two central defenders. He will try to win the ball back whenever possible. He will on occasions go into a 3 man CB position to offer more of a defensive wall.

- One CB is more defensive than the other. The idea is that the more defensive CB will sweep up all the through balls and the other CB will come out of his position to close down any threat lurking outside the area.

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Tactical changes during games (suggestions):

These are only suggestions for tweaks, which may help your team to more success. First off, listen to your Assistant Manager for feedback. Also check the statistics to see where you are miss-placing passes – it may be your central-defenders or your DM. This will give you an idea of where you need to make tweaks. Pause the game whilst you are doing this.

- Ass. Manager / Stats (feedback): If passing is going astray listen to what your Assistant Manager is saying and make the tweaks accordingly to the whole team first of all. If that isn’t working after 20-mins, check out the statistics and see which players are misplacing passes.

- DM / CBs (short-passing): If you are making individual player tweaks have you’re central defenders and defensive midfielder set to short passing, as the aim is they keep it simple and try not to give the ball away.

- DM (deeper / advanced / playmaker): Because this tactic is set-up with a solid "defensive triangle" with the two centre-backs and the DM - who plays fairly deep. If you find there is too much space between your defence and midfield or your DM is not picking up loose balls, set him to play deeper (i.e. more defensive) or more advanced depending on what tactic you are using. If you find he is getting a lot of the ball you can try utilizing him as a playmaker to help create more chances for you.

- Wingers (crossing): For the strikers getting on the end of crosses, if the wide men aren't getting good crosses in, (assuming they have a decent crossing attribute in the first place), then it can often be down to them being closed down before they can get the crosses in, or their crosses are getting blocked. If they're good technical players, the alternative will be to drop their crossing to mixed or rarely, run with ball to often, so that they take players on more instead. If you have got crossing to mixed and run with ball to often and that isn't working, change crossing to often and run with ball to mixed or rarely. What I find this does is encourage them to cross the ball first time rather than carry the ball and then cross. First time passes and crosses are generally harder to close down by opponents, especially when you're playing more high tempo and direct passing. The speed of the movement gives the opponent less time to close players down.

- Striker (deeper): If you are not creating enough chances through the middle of the park or not picking up the loose balls in the middle, have your striker (the one which is already set to less attacking) changed to less attack minded. He will drop back and link up with your wingers and CM, and create through balls for your other striker (who is more advanced).

- Strikers: If they’re passing poorly change them to direct passing.

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Strong points:

These tactics will stretch teams, especially their defensive backline. You will create many clear-cut chances with these tactics. You will restrict teams to long shots. You will have more of the ball, except when plying against far better opposition. You will restrict teams to minimal clear-cut chances, however they will get a lot of long-range shots.

You will notice your wingers (depending on the type of player) will play just about as many balls on the floor into the 6-yard box as they will with crossing.

The opposition will be restricted to long-shots.

Weaknesses:

You will be venerable to long balls, through balls and balls played over the top. If you have slow Centre-back’s who have poor off the ball stats and not good at anticipating things they will be stretched.

Your Full-backs will go forward whenever possible which leaves gaps on the wings and will be exploited. You will concede a lot of goals this way regardless of the oppositions strength – this seems to be more vulnerable against those playing with wingers.

Your midfield can also get outnumbered at times putting strain on your defence – a way around this is to simply tell your central midfielder not to go forward so much.

Can be a nightmare against a team who has players capable of scoring goals from long-range.

Downloads:

Wing-Play 1.0 (expires 24th Jan)

https://www.yousendit.com/download/bFlIc0x5SWVFc0x2Wmc9PQ

Wing-Play 2.0 (expires 24th Jan)

https://www.yousendit.com/download/bFlIc0x5SWUzMW14dnc9PQ

Narrow 1.0 (expires 24th Jan)

https://www.yousendit.com/download/bFlIc0x5SWU5NVZjR0E9PQ

Evidence: These were two games in the Qualifying round of the Champions Cup at the start of the first season. This shows how effective Tactic Wing-Play 2.0 is.

If you make any tweaks and improve it please let everyone know so we can make it a better tactic, especially when Patch 11.3 comes out.

As a huge fan of 442, (nufc player) this looks good to me. I am currently using a 442, that is in effect a 4222 but will try your adaptations as I would like to compare the tactics I am using to yours. I do use flat back 442 but tend to mainly use the wing play 4222 and tweak the instructions in game. I also rely on touchline shouts with the tweaking of the various strategies to get me through a game against tough opposition.

As you will gather from that, I am not a classic tactic player so your first 2 tactics appeal to me.

Hopefully will be able to give you some feedback.

Cheers

ps did you not do a pfd on wing play?

As a huge fan of 442, (nufc player) this looks good to me. I am currently using a 442, that is in effect a 4222 but will try your adaptations as I would like to compare the tactics I am using to yours. I do use flat back 442 but tend to mainly use the wing play 4222 and tweak the instructions in game. I also rely on touchline shouts with the tweaking of the various strategies to get me through a game against tough opposition.

As you will gather from that, I am not a classic tactic player so your first 2 tactics appeal to me.

Hopefully will be able to give you some feedback.

Cheers

ps did you not do a pfd on wing play?

Flack back 4 but the full backs bombard forward all the time. It's a modern style of wing-play with influences from the old-fashioned style of play.

Has anyone else downloaded this and going to give it a test and perhaps make some improvements? if you do let us know please

i was using it last night try as i might i didn't really have much success. I'm gutted to say i started a new game just for this tactic, built my squad around it and still couldn't win that often. I'm not bad mouthing your tactic i want it to work i just couldn't want me to up load screens of my results and squad to show you? maybe you could help me

Has anyone else downloaded this and going to give it a test and perhaps make some improvements? if you do let us know please

hi jay any chance of a quick screen shot of the formation lay out please

hi jay any chance of a quick screen shot of the formation lay out please

let me get one done you mate.

i was using it last night try as i might i didn't really have much success. I'm gutted to say i started a new game just for this tactic, built my squad around it and still couldn't win that often. I'm not bad mouthing your tactic i want it to work i just couldn't want me to up load screens of my results and squad to show you? maybe you could help me

Sure, what team are you as I noticed some players hate playing wide, plus your pitch needs to be wide otherwise it simply wont work.

ok here is my starting 11.

here is my fixtures as you can see i do draw alot of my games and loose quite a few any ideas for signings i think i hve a good starting 11 i could di with a new left back and a striker but apart from that i feel i have a good enough team my pitch size is standard so you think thats my main problem....

im going to try this tactic with syrianska posting results later. its my third season

ok here is my starting 11.

here is my fixtures as you can see i do draw alot of my games and loose quite a few any ideas for signings i think i hve a good starting 11 i could di with a new left back and a striker but apart from that i feel i have a good enough team my pitch size is standard so you think thats my main problem....

You need a wide pitch or it wont work well. What can you see the problem being? spaces open at the back? your right sided centre back needs to be fast as he covers. You defensive midfielder needs to be good defensively as he wins the ball for you. Your CM needs to be creative and a good passer. Your left sided forward needs to be a good team player as he is the one who links up with your midfield and also needs to be a good passer and dribbler. Your right sided forward needs to be quick and have good composure.

Ive gone on a 22 game unbeaten run so this tactic clearly works. Ive started a new season and won 9 on the trot.

ok here is my starting 11.

here is my fixtures as you can see i do draw alot of my games and loose quite a few any ideas for signings i think i hve a good starting 11 i could di with a new left back and a striker but apart from that i feel i have a good enough team my pitch size is standard so you think thats my main problem....

it looks like it has huge defence problems,thats a lot of goals to concede with a top 2 team in scotland,is that 18 games showing there and conceding 31,maybe you should look in to the back 4 and the dm how its setup

I conceded under 20 goals in one of my seasons so its your players. Your furthest back centre-back needs to be quick and have good anticipation. Your pitch needs to be wide for this tactic to work properly.

Read below to work out where your problem is coming from....

You need a wide pitch or it wont work well. What can you see the problem being? spaces open at the back? your right sided centre back needs to be fast as he covers. You defensive midfielder needs to be good defensively as he wins the ball for you. Your CM needs to be creative and a good passer. Your left sided forward needs to be a good team player as he is the one who links up with your midfield and also needs to be a good passer and dribbler. Your right sided forward needs to be quick and have good composure. Have a look at who your playmaker is, DM or CM? you can use either one of them to be the playmaker and string the passes.

it looks like it has huge defence problems,thats a lot of goals to concede with a top 2 team in scotland,is that 18 games showing there and conceding 31,maybe you should look in to the back 4 and the dm how its setup

What problems do you find with your defence? can you be more specific please so the tactics can be tweaked and have you tried experimenting yourself?

where is the link to download the tac? because the others don't work

where is the link to download the tac? because the others don't work

Uploaded mate.

How is everyone getting on with the tactic? any suggestions for improvements? I keep dominating the league with this tactic.